Hockey and a trip to the ER

That something I had to get to after the wedding was my friend's Nancy's daughter's hockey game.  She plays on a travel league and is REALLY good.  They usually are far far away, so when I heard that she was going to be in GR and I was going to be in GR (sans kids even) then I knew it was meant to be.  I have never been to a hockey game before, so I was excited to go watch somebody I actually knew.  I felt a little silly showing up in really nice wedding clothes, but it all worked out.  :)

The game seemed like it was not a clean game.  There was a lot of dirty little hits here and there that the refs weren't calling. Nancy said that it wasn't typical for this to happen and she wished that they would do something about it because it's just going to escalate and somebody's gonna get hurt.  Well, I'm not even kidding you a few minutes later as her daughter, Josie, is getting off the ice some girl hits her with a cheap blindside and it landed her in the ER.  I guess the rules are if they don't move or get off the ice within a certain amount of time then they automatically call an ambulance.  I knew that the hit wasn't very good but when she didn't move a muscle it got really scary really fast.  She was on her belly and hadn't moved an inch.  Finally after awhile she moved her feet and then her arms but they where stabilizing her head which is horrifying from the stands.  The ambulance finally arrived and they got her all stabilized and on the stretcher and then took her to DeVos children's hospital.  Now, this is a little off topic but since I had been downtown for the past two days that meant I was parallel parking and I have to say that I did a really good job all 3 times I had to do it.  Anyhoo...

She scored a goal before she got taken out

I didn't know what to do honestly.  The original plan was to hang out at the game and then we were all going to go out to eat... but obviously that wasn't going to happen.  I didn't know what type of person Nancy was in scary situations... if she wanted friends around, if she just wanted to deal with it alone, just family etc etc.  I didn't want to be in the way but wanted to be as helpful as possible... so when they took her outside I found Nancy and asked her what she wanted me to do.  I offered to go to the hospital with them incase they needed anything and so I followed Scott, his brother, brothers friend, and grandma and grandpa to the hospital.  She was smiling and joking as they wheeled her out so that helped ease the anxiety a little.




They took her in and finally got all her pads/gear off and then put a neck brace on her.  She hurt someplace up in the cervical neck region so they were going to get a CAT scan to see if anything was out of whack.  I was just hanging out with the rest of the family in the waiting room when Nancy came out and said that Josie requested me.  :)  There could only be two people in the room with her so I took the place of one of her parents.  I felt honored.




Long story short everything was OK.  She was going to be sore for a few days but didn't have to wear the neck brace unless she needed too.  I was glad that I got to see her play and even more happy that I was able to be there for support and a little entertainment too.  It was quite the first hockey game experience!  We later went to the last of her tournament games the next day and watched their team get bronze.  :)

JVG